Flintlock

by William W. Johnstone

  He considered briefly making a dash for Tyrell’s horse, but he immediately dismissed the idea. He’d be cut down in a hail of lead before he took a couple of steps.

  As it happened, only Geronimo rode forward, but his face was grim. It was a measure of the Apache’s anger that he chose to speak English, a language he knew but hated. He called it “bitter poison on his tongue.”

  “Why are you not at the fort?” the Apache said.

  “They kicked me out,” Pagg said. “But—”

  “Why did they kick you out, Pagg?”

  “They said I tried to rape a woman. But I didn’t. I swear it.”

  “Who is the man you just killed?”

  “Nobody. I needed his horse.”

  Pagg figured that was something an Apache would understand, and indeed, the foul expression on Geronimo’s face didn’t change, as though he accepted the explanation without question.

  “We will attack Fort Defiance tonight, by moonlight,” he said. “You will not be there.”

  Geronimo turned his head and said something Pagg didn’t understand. But he felt a spike of fear as half a dozen warriors rode forward, none of them young bucks, but older, experienced men. There would be little pity in them.

  Thinking fast, Pagg said, “I’ll ride with you, Geronimo.” He slapped the butts of his revolvers. “I know how to use these.”

  “This is not what we agreed.”

  “I know, but they kicked me out. When we attack”—Pagg liked that we, making it a foregone conclusion that Geronimo would forgive him—“I’ve got some killing to do, scores to settle.”

  Geronimo said words to his warriors and the oldest of them nodded. He was a somber man with a deep scar on his left cheek, an ancient Mexican saber wound.

  “They agree with me that I should kill you, Pagg,” Geronimo said.

  “When you attack the fort, you’ll need every gun you’ve got,” Pagg said. “Killing me will only weaken you.”

  “I am thinking of that,” Geronimo said.

  Pagg shrugged out of the slicker and let it fall. He showed his back.

  “The soldiers know that you and I are friends, Geronimo, so they whipped me.”

  The Apache didn’t react. “I have told you before that you are not my friend, Pagg,” he said. “My people have no friends.”

  Pagg opened his mouth to speak, but Geronimo held up a silencing hand. “Let me think on this,” he said. “But be fearful of your life. Make the resolve now that if my decision is death you will die well and not like a woman screaming in childbirth. You have disappointed me, don’t disgrace me.”

  Geronimo closed his eyes and bowed his head and the warriors around him chanted, their voices rising and falling like the song of a gusting wind among pinnacles of rock.

  Asa Pagg figured his next move.

  If Geronimo’s verdict was death, he’d draw and shoot.

  He fingered his beard and chose his targets. Four, maybe five Apaches would go down, Geronimo among them, then, in the confusion he’d make a run for his horse.

  The mustang was small, but since Pleasant Tyrell owned it, the little horse would be fast and have sand enough that it would run until its heart burst.

  The old man’s butt-forward guns felt damned awkward, but Pagg was confident he’d shuck them quick enough if bad news came down.

  Five long minutes passed and for Pagg it seemed like an eternity.

  But suddenly Geronimo’s head snapped erect. A mist cleared from his eyes and he said, “The path I must take has been revealed to me, Pagg.” He waited a moment, then said, “You will lead the attack on Fort Defiance.”

  Relief flooded through Pagg. He said, “You do me great honor, Geronimo.”

  “We will see . . . when you charge at the front of the Apache.”

  “When do we attack?”

  Geronimo pointed to the sky directly above his head.

  “When the moon is there.”

  “I’ll be ready,” Pagg said.

  “We will return for you, Pagg,” Geronimo said. “Be here.”

  “Of course,” Pagg said.

  The Apache swung his horse away and the warriors with him followed.

  Silhouetted against the sky, a hawk that looked like it had been cut with a razor from a sheet of black paper paused in flight and then dropped like a lightning bolt into the brush.

  A squeal and a small death . . . but neither the uncaring land nor Asa Pagg took any notice.

  It was Angus McCarty, the dour Scots sutler, who would later get the credit for saving Fort Defiance.

  And for dealing a severe defeat to the Apaches.

  “They say up in Canada there’s still herds of buffalo, herds as big as they was right here in the U.S. a ten-year ago,” Cavalry Private Steve Wilkins said. “That’s what I heard, all right.”

  “I doubt it,” McCarty said, wiping the bar with a damp cloth. “After Sitting Bull massacred the gallant Custer he led the Sioux into Canada and they damn near starved to death.”

  “That was then, this is now,” Wilkins said, as stubborn as the Scotsman. “Nobody knows what’s in Canada.”

  “Canadians,” McCarty said.

  He moved down the bar to serve another customer and stopped in his tracks. The windows of the store were open to allow the cool night air to enter and the fog of pipe and cigar smoke to leave.

  But it was what McCarty heard, not smelled, that troubled him.

  Quail tend to be quiet birds and seldom call out at night. Besides, all the quail around Fort Defiance had been hunted out years before by generations of soldiers.

  There should be no quail calls where there are no quail.

  Ignoring the impatient protests from his customer, McCarty began to move around the store and quietly close and bolt the window shutters.

  “Hey, McCarty, it’s hot enough in here,” a man yelled. “Keep them shutters open.”

  “Apaches,” McCarty said.

  There were eight soldiers in the store and immediately the sutler had their attention. All wore a sidearm, but none had a rifle.

  “Wilkins, split ass across to headquarters and warn them,” McCarty said. “The rest of you men follow me.”

  The sutler stepped to the gun rack and began to hand out Winchesters.

  “Ammunition in the chest over there,” he said. “Load up and be quick about it.”

  Angus McCarty had been a sergeant in the British Army’s 27th Regiment of Foot and had served in India. He had not lost the habit of command and no one questioned his authority.

  “Right lads, let’s get the lamps out,” he said.

  As the oil lamps were extinguished a soldier said, “What do we do now?”

  “We wait until the time is right,” McCarty said.

  “When will that be?” the soldier said.

  “When I tell you, Kelsey,” McCarty said.

  Outside a quail called again. Closer this time.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  From somewhere close, Sam Flintlock heard an owl hoot. He opened his eyes and saw the moon directly overhead, bloodred, like a malignant spirit.

  He tried to draw a deep breath, but his chest felt painful and raw, as though he was trying to breathe in a smoke-filled room.

  Flintlock panicked and struggled to sit upright, fearing that he could suffocate.

  “Take it easy, Samuel, just small, quick breaths.”

  Jack Coffin’s voice.

  A moment later the man’s head blocked out the moon and Flintlock stared into the wide blur of his face.

  Unable to talk, he grabbed Coffin’s arm, his wild, frightened eyes clamoring a question.

  “There is something in the cave that poisons the air,” the breed said. “It nearly done for you.”

  Flintlock’s breathing eased a little, but he still didn’t trust himself to speak. He tightened his hold on Coffin’s arm.

  “When you went into the cave and didn’t return, I followed you,” Coffin said. “I found you hugging a skelet
on and dragged you outside.” The breed’s teeth flashed white. “I thought you wouldn’t make it, Samuel. It would’ve been a great loss to humanity.”

  “The bell . . .” Flintlock gasped.

  “Is there. Yes, I know.”

  “Gold . . .”

  Coffin nodded, but said nothing.

  “It . . . it made me raving mad.”

  “Gold can do that to a man,” Coffin said.

  Flintlock shook his head. “Evil . . . Jack, it’s evil.”

  “The bell isn’t evil. But it’s made of gold and gold can bring the evil that lies dormant in every man to the surface.”

  Flintlock breathed easier, the lethal gas he’d inhaled slowly clearing his lungs. But speaking still came hard.

  “Jack,” he said, raising his head a little, “I wanted to kill everybody . . . to . . . to keep my gold.”

  “You were not in your right mind, Samuel, huh?” Coffin said.

  “I don’t want the damned bell, Jack.”

  “Then you will not have it,” Coffin said.

  He helped Flintlock to a sitting position. A small fire burned close by. “There is coffee.”

  Flintlock nodded. “That would be good.” Suddenly he looked around him, his head jerking this way and that.

  Coffin smiled. “I have the Hawken.”

  “It was given to me—”

  “By Barnabas. Yes, you told me. I’ll get you coffee, Samuel. Breathe easy and don’t try to move yet.”

  As Coffin stepped away, Flintlock saw old Barnabas sitting by the fire, twanging on a mouth harp. The tune was “Skip to My Lou” and the old mountain man played it badly.

  Finally Barnabas took the harp from his mouth, stared at it and slipped it into his pants pocket. He looked at Flintlock. “Found your mama yet?”

  “No,” Flintlock said.

  “A man should have his own name,” Barnabas said. “In hell, nobody is called by name. Did you know that?”

  “No,” Flintlock said.

  “Well, it’s true. Everyone is damned, so their names don’t matter. But yours still does.”

  Barnabas faded gradually, like a mist in a wind. Only his words lingered....

  “Don’t let the golden bell be your death, Sam.”

  Coffin stepped beside Flintlock, a steaming tin cup in his hand.

  “You talking to yourself, Samuel?” he said.

  “Barnabas.”

  “Don’t play worth a damn, does he?”

  “You heard him?”

  “And saw him. I see many things with an Indian’s eyes, Samuel, and I hear with an Indian’s ears.”

  Flintlock took out the makings and built a cigarette.

  Coffin watched him for a while, then said, “Your lungs have been poisoned, yet you smoke tobacco.”

  “I’m a smoking man, Jack,” Flintlock said. “Besides, docs say smoking is real good for the lungs. Clears them out, you know.”

  “Sometimes the things doctors say are wrong.”

  “Maybe so, but they wouldn’t make that big a mistake.”

  Flintlock lit his cigarette, drew deep and doubled over as violent coughs wracked him and jerked tears from his eyes.

  Abe Roper charged out of the night, a gun in his hand and fire in his eyes.

  “What the hell, Sammy?” he said. “I woke up and you were gone. I thought you’d been taken by the Apaches.”

  Flintlock nodded in Coffin’s direction and said, “Only that Apache.”

  “What’s going on?” Roper demanded.

  For a moment, Flintlock thought about lying, but Roper deserved the truth. “I saw the bell, Abe.”

  Astonishment showed on Roper’s face. “You saw it?”

  “Damn right. Two thousand pounds of gold, if it’s an ounce.”

  Roper squatted on his heels beside the fire. “Don’t that beat all, Sam’l, we’re rich.”

  “Abe, the bell is cursed,” Flintlock said. “I want nothing to do with it.”

  “You talkin’ about it being guarded by Death an’ all that crap? It’s nothing but a big story.”

  “It is guarded by Death,” Flintlock said. “There’s poisonous gas in the cave and it can kill. I reckon that’s how the story that the cave is guarded by Death got started.”

  “Hell, you survived.”

  “Only just. If Jack Coffin hadn’t pulled me out of there I’d be a dead man.”

  Roper tilted his head and stared into Flintlock’s eyes. “Sammy, you wouldn’t be lying to me so you can keep the gold to yourself, would you?”

  “Samuel speaks the truth, Roper,” Coffin said. “He would’ve died in there if I hadn’t saved him.”

  Roper wasn’t convinced. “You two in cahoots?”

  “I don’t want your gold, Roper,” Coffin said. “It’s an evil thing.”

  “Then all the more for the rest of us,” Roper said. He laid a hand on Flintlock’s shoulder. “At first light, you’ll take me and Charlie into the cave. I want to see the bell.”

  “I told you, Abe, there’s some kind of gas in there and it’s deadly,” Flintlock said.

  “I’ll take my chances,” Roper said.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “I know what gold fever does to a man,” Roper said. “I’ve seen it many times before.”

  “Count me out, Abe. I’m never going back in there.”

  “Then me and Charlie will go our ownselves,” Roper said.

  “You’ll find the bell, but you’ll also find your deaths,” Coffin said.

  “Says you,” Roper said, putting a wealth of meaning into two words.

  “Abe, let me explain this to you,” Flintlock said. “The only way you can get the bell out of there is to break it up inside the cave. And you can’t do that, because the gas will kill you before you even start. Is what I’m telling you too difficult to understand?”

  “All right, then we toss a loop on the bell, hitch up the pack mules and drag it out,” Roper said.

  “For one thing, you won’t get mules to go in there, and even if you did, mules can’t drag a two-thousand-pound bell through a narrow cave that twists and turns,” Flintlock said.

  “Hell, Sammy, somebody dragged it in there.”

  “Yeah, monks and maybe hundreds of Indians,” Flintlock said. “And it could be that back then the poison gas hadn’t yet seeped into the cave.”

  Roper bit his lip in frustration. But then his face brightened and he said, “All right, so you’re telling me the truth, Sammy. And if that’s the case, the only solution is dynamite.”

  “I sure hope I’m not catching your drift, Abe,” Flintlock said.

  “Listen to this . . . there’s crowbars in the mule packs. Right?”

  Flintlock nodded.

  “Right. So me an’ Charlie run in there with wet cloths over our mouths, crowbar the bell high enough to slip a stick of dynamite underneath, and then we scamper.”

  “And the whole damned mountain comes down on top of you.”

  “No. See, that’s the beauty of the thing. The explosion blows up the bell, but hurts nothing else. You see what I’m saying? It’s just like when you were a boy an’ put a firecracker under a cup. The firecracker went off, broke up the cup but didn’t blow up maiden aunt Jemima’s front porch.”

  Roper rubbed his hands together. “It’s gonna be great! Me and Charlie run inside again, pick up the pieces and carry them away from the gas. Hell, Sammy, we won’t have time to get poisoned.”

  “A two-thousand-pound bell makes for a lot of pieces and a long time in the gas, even if your harebrained scheme works, which it won’t,” Flintlock said.

  “Samuel, an explosion could bring down the rock shelf,” Coffin said.

  Irritated, Roper said, “Damnit all, what rock shelf?”

  “It hangs over the mouth of the cave, Abe,” Flintlock said. “You could bring it down then you and Charlie would be trapped. We could never dig you out of there.”

  Roper’s frustration boiled over. “
Then give me something, Sammy.”

  “Abe, I’ve got nothing to give you. Anyway you cut it, the bell is beyond reach.”

  “I’ll get it out of there,” Roper said. “As God is my witness, I’ll have that damned bell.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Asa Pagg stared into shadowed stillness of Fort Defiance and allowed himself a twinge of concern.

  The lamps in the sutler’s store had been extinguished at least two hours earlier than they should’ve been, and the headquarters building and the barracks block were also in darkness.

  Damnit, did they know?

  He turned in the saddle to the Apache at his side. “Geronimo, I don’t like this,” he said. “Send a couple of your warriors to scout the place.”

  “The soldiers are all asleep, Pagg.”

  “Where are the pickets?”

  “White men don’t keep good watch,” Geronimo said.

  “There’s something wrong here, something that doesn’t set right with me.”

  “You are afraid to lead the attack?” Geronimo said.

  A shooting star blazed a fiery track across the night sky to the west and the Apache and Pagg followed it with their eyes. When the meteor disappeared, Geronimo said, “We have been visited by the omen of death. This is good. The soldiers will fall to us like broken reeds.”

  Geronimo laid his Springfield across his thighs. “The Apache await you, Pagg.”

  The outlaw shook his head. “I told you, Geronimo, I don’t like this.”

  The Apache was old, but he was quick.

  Geronimo brought up the butt of his rifle and slammed it into the right side of Pagg’s jaw. Pagg tumbled out of the saddle backward and he was unconscious when he hit the ground.

  The Apache looked down at the stunned man and said without undue emphasis, “Coward. Better you’d died in battle, Pagg, and gone home a hero.”

  Geronimo raised his rifle high and yelled his war cry. He charged directly at the headquarters building, his young men behind him.

  Moments later rifles crashed and scarlet flame seared the starlit darkness of the night.

  Angus McCarty ordered half the soldiers to man the gun ports cut into the shutters and they laid down a covering fire as he led the others onto the porch and ordered them to drop to a shooting position and fire at will.